


Cut and Paste

by Riemann_integrable



Category: B: The Beginning (Anime)
Genre: Also this just started looking like 91 days after a while so i just rolled with it LMFAO, I hope i wasn't a dick about the other ships idt i have but yeah, Implied keith/gilbert, Implied kokuyuna, Lots of gilbert references, Lots of vaguely hinted ships, M/M, Mildly implied keithlily, Mind Manipulation, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 03:34:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15832917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riemann_integrable/pseuds/Riemann_integrable
Summary: Pick and choose between timelines until you get the one you wanted. Then blame it on something bigger than yourself so you can bear your own omnipotence; because you're not mature enough to take responsibility.





	Cut and Paste

**Author's Note:**

> Whenever I really want to write something, it always comes out weird as fuck for some reason... But yeah, I've taken a break from TWP just to write this fic since it was overdue. I've always loved this ship but I needed the outside encouragement to actually write it, so I'm glad it suddenly became popular. Please don't blame me for my mindfuck kink transpiring into everything I touch.

Keith places a pot of gumbo on the table. It’s too late for lunch, around three in the afternoon, the sun is filtering into the trailer through the shutter’s cracks like a morse code. The container’s handle has melted off halfway in the process of cooking, not because he didn’t pay attention, but because the equipment in this thing is such garbage that everything gets broken easily. There’s a creak coming from the table as well as the weight is posited on it. Koku jolts up just a little when a large dose of steaming food is poured onto his plate, Keith could swear he saw one of his eyes moving independently from the other as though it has a life of its own — maybe his imagination is mingling with reality in the supernatural freakshow he finds himself in. 

 

“Thank you” Koku says like there’s any point in pretending to be polite when he’s a  _ serial killer _ .

 

Keith nods as he distributes the rest to himself. They spend most of the time like this, not talking at all — which is good, because that’s usually a waste of energy, something he’s pretty certain they have a mutual agreement on. It’s not awkward. It would be more awkward to force out small talk when there’s so much to handle for both of them.

 

“This is very good.”

 

He raises his eyebrows. Whenever Koku throws a compliment out there like this, he can’t help but feel just as perplexed as the first time. No surprise that there’d be something wrong with a kid this reverent, people his age are usually insufferable — no, Keith has to correct himself, he’s a twenty-year-old who only  _ looks _ and  _ acts _ like a teenager, which he’s sure is a significant difference in some way. Of course. As he chews on a shrimp, he also realizes he’s making a logical analysis of a single comment praising his food and that maybe he has as many screws loose as—  _ at least Koku _ . He leaves the parallels at that.

 

“Well, I’m glad you’re still enjoying it. Most brats would whine about the lack of variety by now” he resigns to saying. 

 

“Not at all” Koku replies as he turns towards the source of light for a moment, hair kept up in a silly way by the bandage around his head. “When are we moving on?”

 

“I’ll patch you back up since you seem to have bled through it last night. We might manage to get to the other side of the island by evening if we set off immediately, that’s the idea.”

 

After finishing the last spoonfuls, Koku sits on the bed sideways and leaves some space behind himself obediently. He’s a lump of rough muscle on a skinny body wrapped in clothing too big for him, Keith notices. The hair on his nape stands up like a cat’s that feels threatened, which makes him wonder if he does, though his form remains still like he’s focusing elsewhere. No matter how faulty, the furniture under him never makes a sound when he flops down onto it, maybe an incentive to feed him more. All the flying, moving around and agitation must burn a lot of calories.

 

“What are you dozing off for? Your shirt.” Keith pulls himself back into the situation forcibly as he realizes they don’t have much time.

 

“Right.”

 

He watches as Koku’s head disappears under the red, worn-out fabric, a piece of clothing Keith used to wear in university when he would lie in the grass and cram formulas as he was nagged into joining a game of frisbee. It makes his head spin to even think about that period of his life. He wishes he could just make it go away. Koku’s shoulderblade shifts when he puts his arm down, some of the injuries peek out from under the cover, he looks like a sentient war zone. Keith knows it’s not as unpleasant for him as for an average person, and yet has to flinch when he imagines the sting. He unravels the bandages like they’re part of the other’s body, like they’re skin as they stick to it from the dry blood and need some force to depart from it. Koku is a statue. He might be out of it on purpose, or in some strong state of dissociation; hell knows what’s on his mind, really. It pisses Keith off that he can’t figure it out.

 

“Does this kind of injury not hurt you at all?” The question slips out.

 

“Not really.”

 

He trails by his spine driven by an unknown force and pokes a newly-exposed bullet wound. Koku lets out the most spontaneous scream of agony.

 

There’s a moment of pause. Keith has to come to the wide-eyed realization that he has no idea what the fuck he just did — and why, most of all. No, he knows perfectly well, it’s  _ curiosity _ again, a concept that’s been haunting him for too long and is going to ruin him later if not sooner. He stays frozen for at least five seconds and is eternally thankful that he can’t see the puzzlement and alarm on Koku’s face. His eyes remain pinned to the tangle of old, bloody bandages on the bedcovers as though they’re manifestations of his imminent guilt. 

 

“See, don’t talk big” he says, hoping that turning it into a lecture will help, like those researchers who try to salvage their reputation through the value of data from a shady experiment.

 

For functional purposes, he avoids musing; and so he covers up the wounds methodically and they leave as soon as they can. Most of their drives are spent in silence, with Koku staring out the window as if there’s anything noteworthy outside and it’s not just the same scene of fields and fields and fields, sometimes a grove, then more fields. He could be looking at his reflection on the window. Keith would, in his place, because that eye is just way too weird to get used to— He has to steer frantically because he almost just crashed into another car by not looking at the road. Koku glances his way with furrowed brows but turns back a moment later. 

 

It’s unusual when he speaks, a few minutes later.

 

“I don’t understand why you’re helping me like this.”

 

“Haven’t I told you before?” Keith groans while slaloming between two trucks. “You have information I need.”

 

“An interrogation, then?” comments Koku, like he’s already sure he’s right.

 

“I’m currently wanted by the police, in case you’re unaware.”

 

They stop when he starts feeling drowsy and in need of a coffee, at a gas station with a few bars and motels built around like a lymph node of the road network. The sun has grown orange, ready to disappear behind the horizon, not an usual hour to be consuming anything containing caffeine unless one has to possibly extend a journey by car into the night. Both men throw themselves down onto the padded seats at the two sides of a table, Keith is too exhausted to get up and order instead of relying on a waiter but he can see on Koku’s face that he’d want him to. Impatient, surely, because he’s too eager to continue his combination of seeking revenge and a sweetheart he hasn’t seen in ten years. The girl who ends up serving them in five minutes is so cheery she almost looks disheartened by the weight of the  atmosphere between them. Keith asks her if she could get him three espressos in the same cup, no sugar, sweetener or milk, thank you. He gives Koku an upwards nod of the chin to ask him if he wants something, to which he shrugs and is interrupted by the growling of his own stomach as if they’re in a comedy skit. The girl laughs. She looks a bit like Lily when she does. Koku gives up and decides on pancakes whimsically.

 

Keith can’t help it, the need to decipher him is too strong in these moments — those when he’s staring at the still air before him with his chin on his palm. When twelve-year-old him read about the Black-winged King he imagined a creature incomprehensible in a different way, ethereal beyond humanity, a weapon of destruction with barely a shred of a conscience; in the investigation, too, he thought Killer B would be ruthless and terrifying. The fact that the two identities converged in one person, and that said person was radically different than both the images he had, is nothing short of mind-blowing. Koku is the personification of confusion. He’s a young man with no awareness of his own physical injuries, dangerously impulsive if pushed the wrong way, who’s capable of murder but has to be medicated, fed and wrapped up in oversized induments. Keith knows he shouldn’t be fooled by this. That he’s risking death every second of this trip — one moment of Koku getting tired of doing this and he’ll cut him to pieces, then leave with his father’s notebook and call it a day.

 

He’s sitting there instead, in a way that might be more unbearable than an attack on his part. His pupils are moving ever so slightly, they’re either looking at the table’s surface and the paper menu on it, or Keith’s hand resting there limply. Maybe it’s still the question he asked before.  _ Why is he helping him like this _ ? Keith admits that he could have done less. But, for fuck’s sake, being nice shouldn’t be this weird. 

 

“What are you gonna do when this is over?” He strikes up a conversation instead, when the chaotically potent coffee and the pile of pancakes arrive. 

 

“I’ll live” Koku says briefly before adding; “The way I’ve wanted to since I was small.”

 

“Not to drag you down, but you know how people with a vendetta end up, right?”

 

“How?” It sounds a bit offended, aloof and challenging.

 

“Unhappy and dissatisfied.”

 

Keith can see it struck him where it hurts. A narrowing of the other’s eyes makes him regret saying that almost immediately.

 

“It was just a warning,” he sighs to remedy, “so you’ll plan in advance on what’s next. Take her on a trip like this, god knows. You can have this trailer, I don’t need it anyway, though I doubt you can drive.”

 

Koku’s face is suddenly full of dizziness, he looks into Keith’s eyes for a mere millisecond before forcibly concentrating on the plate before him and stuffing an entire pancake in his mouth. Mentioning Yuna throws him off like this, probably. He might have remembered something involving the two of them, the sort of idyllic childhood romance that Keith has only seen in books and movies he wasn’t quite interested in; maybe it’s a nice thing to have. Koku looks sick briefly, like he’s eaten too much at once.

 

“I’m going to the restroom, I’ll be right back.”

 

He watches this living demigod walk across a run-down bar and disappear behind a door made of wooden slats. Keith has all the time he needs, before he comes back, to chip off a piece of his food from across and smear maple syrup all over it with the fork, finishing the last sips in his cup. He doesn’t like to think Koku went to puke, but he looks at peace when he sits again and quickly eats the rest of the pancakes with content calm. 

 

They travel four more hours in the car without saying a word. In a while, Koku starts blinking from sleepiness, the street lamps’ light hitting his pale cheeks periodically. He gradually settles into the seat, though the headrest is uncomfortably higher than his nape. There’s a mumble falling past his lips as he’s about to slumber off, Keith has to ask him to repeat because the jumps of the trailer on the rocks muffled it out.

 

“So, why are you helping me?”

 

“You just can’t believe it, can you?” He almost yells at Koku from exasperation. “Do you think I’m gonna give a different answer if you keep asking? It’s a pretty straightforward reason, Christ.”

 

There’s a pause as the entire vehicle shudders from a bigger pothole.

 

“Did you get it in your head that I want to murder you or something?” Keith asks after trying to reflect on it. “Because that’s  _ your _ area of expertise, you know.”

 

That thankfully shuts down the conversation so they can maintain some harmony until they finally arrive to the sea again. It’s uninhabited all nearby. There’s an aggregation of pines that cuts off right at the island’s edge before it turns more grassy, then ends in a small precipice with waves splashing on the rocks below. As Keith maneuvers off the road, following the contour of the wood, the vegetation under the wheels is just soft enough to make them quiet in their passing. They get out almost at the same time — there’s a fresh and slightly moist air outside with a pleasant smell of pine and sea breeze, only a few overzealous crickets making noise. It’s a very nice place, actually. Would be nicer to visit in any circumstance other than theirs, but it’s better than nothing.

 

Koku proposes going to sleep immediately. He does seem quite exhausted so Keith complies bitterly despite the elaborate questionnaire he was mentally preparing for him — it would have been good to know the reggies’ potentials, how many of them there are, how much damage one has to do to destroy them, in what regards they differ from human beings or gods. He mulls on it, still, as he rolls to his side in the dark, lying on the narrow expanse of floor in the kitchen part of the trailer. The couch had to be given to Koku because he needs to heal and, well, because he’s an unpredictable supernatural entity and appeasing him is always the better choice. Besides, Keith is used to sleeping — or  _ staying awake  _ — like this, after countless nights spent on hard floorboards, trying to solve equations. Lily could be following them, he entertains the idea, but he hopes, he prays she isn’t. Scenes where she’s bursting into the trailer at dawn flash before his eyes, even the imaginary concern he attributes to an imaginary Lily is hurting him in some way. It transitions into a state of half-slumber inadvertently and the fantasies start shifting into dreams, when suddenly he has to blink and his body shakes up. He’s not present enough to interpret the noise first and initially thinks it’s the door bursting open, only to then realize it’s not. 

 

“Koku? What’s happening?”

 

Keith scrapes himself together with the crack of a few joints when he hears no answer from the other room. The night outside is unusually silent at this time.

 

“Did they reopen?” He blurts out, eyes darting all over the other’s chest, looking for blood.

 

Koku would be akin to an elaborate wax statue with the eerie paleness of his skin and the numb look in his eyes, if it wasn’t for how hard he’s breathing, for how the sweat rolls down his face and collarbones in drops. Like a small steam engine. It’s difficult to tell whether he’s frozen to ice or overheating, what temperature one’s fingers should expect if they were to touch him. Keith doesn’t dare to. In fact, he has no idea how to react while the other is short-circuiting, they’d need a doctor or something, and it’s not the right time to curse at the first association to that idea. In the end he grips Koku by the shoulders when he’s desperate enough to do something,  _ anything _ , and the Black-winged King’s head whips to the side in a spasm, his crown of bandages coming undone.

 

He wheezes softly and Keith shakes him, keeps asking what’s wrong without receiving any input. Five minutes and they’re in the sorry excuse for a bathroom the trailer’s equipped with, Koku is unresponsive and trembling when his face gets immersed in water. He rises from the sink, Keith’s hand weakly resting on his back, droplets caught-up in the strands before his eyes and his lashes. If the other man wasn’t paying so much attention, he would hardly hear the whisper that comes next.

 

“Memories—” Koku cuts himself off before constructing a sentence to match the word. 

 

It shouldn’t be, but it’s a relief; of course he’d still be traumatized, this is someone who lived through a massacre as a kid and only just remembered, that doesn’t feel great objectively. It’s nothing more intricate and messy. Keith hates himself for not seeing the issue in its simplicity. He should have realized before that this kid (if he can be called that) just can’t put up with the pressure, that he has an awful past and is missing a person he loves. It’s easy. It’s comprehensible.

 

Koku is pulled into the crook of his neck in an act that they’d both find odd and embarrassing normally, but he’s delirious and out of his mind while Keith is exhausted and full of dread. It’s not as heartwarming a sensation as it probably looks like. It’s uncomfortable and cold from wetness (now permeating Keith’s shirt), an attempt at decency that has to be appreciated for what it is instead of what it should be. He feels the tension in Koku’s shoulders and genuinely wonders what he could do to soothe it — his own are the same, he’s just old and jaded enough to be accustomed. Keith is starting to feel cramped but he draws the embrace out for as long as it’s necessary, they won’t mention it later anyway. This occurrence makes sure they both wake up late the next day; Koku really can’t be faulted for heavy psychological trauma so there are no reprimands, but they skip breakfast and go straight for dinner when it’s like this.

 

Keith places a pot of gumbo on the table. It’s too early to eat today, the sun is filtering into the trailer through the shutter’s cracks like a morse code. The container’s handle has melted off halfway in the process of cooking, not because he didn’t pay attention, but because the equipment in this thing is such garbage that everything gets broken easily. A mismatched pair of eyes is examining it as if it’s something outrageous. There’s a creak coming from the table as well as the weight is posited on it. Koku jolts up just a little when a large dose of steaming food is poured onto his plate, Keith looks in a different direction to avoid making eye contact because seriously, the sort of powers he has are disturbing. 

 

“Thank you” Koku says, he sounds genuine. 

 

Keith nods as he distributes the rest to himself. They spend most of the time like this, not talking at all — which is good, because that’s usually a waste of energy, something he’s pretty certain they have a mutual agreement on. He’s not sure he hasn’t dreamed it, but Koku’s meltdown last night would be both awkward and the only conversational topic worth bringing up considering neither of them is on the peak of mental activity and a discussion about investigative information would be fruitless now. Silence is better.

 

“This is very good.”

 

He raises his eyebrows. This sort of thing makes one wonder what Koku is trying to achieve by showing his fondness of gumbo so openly, if he somehow concluded this is the only way he can muster to get on Keith’s good side. It’s one of the few funny things the older man has thought of in the past week and he almost chuckles at it.

 

“Is this just flattery?” He ends up asking. 

 

“Not at all. I enjoy this dish.”

 

“I bet you wouldn’t if you ate it every day” Keith sighs.

 

Koku stops for a moment as though time froze. He’s clutching the spoon in his rough, bony fingers, perplexed, while the stew trickles off of it monotonously. It’s really as if he’d just heard the oddest thing in his life and Keith is already giving himself at least three different interpretations on what was wrong with his own phrase.

 

“Aren’t you the one doing that?” Relievingly, Koku has come back to reality with a dose of snark.

 

“You could have just said you’re a kindred soul from the start, then” Keith retorts and shrugs before resuming his meal. He can’t help but think this kid is sometimes harder to deal with than Lily.

 

They actually sit down after that and make the atmosphere more pragmatic. Koku shares so much information even his brief, factual sentences sound like he’s going off on a tangent as the other takes notes as fast as he can. He paces up and down and Keith glances up at him sometimes from the couch — he does look a bit absorbed, must have spent a lot of time researching his enemies. Koku’s hatred for reggies is deep and destructive, even irrational at times. The pen traces over the notebook’s paper so frantically it could catch fire.

 

“...Their density is around five percent in the thirteenth district, I think that’s the highest. The more deteriorated ones gather there as well because a lot of the drug goes back and forth, I can give you specific locations if you want—”

 

“This is enough, alright” Keith interrupts his monologue.

 

“There’s a lot more you might be interested in” Koku looks at him almost angrily for exhibiting less interest in the details than expected.

 

“We’ll tell RIS that when it becomes a priority” comes a tired response. “It’s true, I want to know more, but not this sort of thing. I have questions to ask.”

 

“Go ahead” he sits down next to Keith who looks him in the eyes no matter how creepy he finds them.

 

“Just how much of a beef do you have with these people?”

 

He can see the twitch in Koku’s left hand, the one he always gets when he has that instinctive rage and wants to hurt someone. The appendage bubbles and boils on the verge of transforming — but it doesn’t. Whatever he was going to do manifests in a suffocated reply with a lot of seething anger buried in it.

 

“They ruined my life… They took away everything I had…” He pauses with his head hung down before looking back up again. “They’re not  _ people _ . They’re monsters.”

 

“Whatever you say” Keith shrugs, hoping his detachment won’t add to the tantrum.

 

“I’m going to kill all of them and you can’t keep me from doing it.” He has to wonder if Koku is trying to get a rise out of him on purpose.

 

“Fine, I’ll proceed with my work as law enforcement then, and you can’t keep me from doing it either.”

 

“You should focus on catching all the government-protected criminals roaming free in the city in that case, assuming you get your job back.”

 

“Somebody’s bitter today.” The detective yawns before closing the notebook and standing up to walk towards the kitchen.

 

Keith can feel the other’s gaze on him as he makes coffee; he doesn’t address it, but a single glance to make sure is enough for him to notice the strange sorrow in Koku’s eyes. Again, god knows what exactly it stems from. It could be too many things. He leans against the doorframe as he waits for the water to boil, crossing his arms and trying to make sense of the creature sitting on the couch. The bandages on his head haven’t been replaced, maybe he should— Koku is crying. Fuck.

 

“Hey,” it sounds awkwardly apathetic and raspy, he figures he perhaps shouldn’t step closer from where he is though. “Are you indignated? Are you upset because you miss her?”

 

“Both” Koku tries to keep his voice even between two held-back sobs.

 

“Well, I don’t have kids so you can’t expect me to be good at comforting people.” Keith can hear an irritated exhale. “But my brain definitely tells me you’ll make it. So pull yourself together.”

 

The brew gurgles, he takes it off the stove and pours it in two cups, placing them on the small table in the middle of the room. Koku’s covering his face with his palms as he leans on them, recomposing himself.

 

“Can I have milk and sugar?” He asks quietly.

 

“Yeah, I know. You drink it the same way every morning.”

 

The other watches him spoon sugar into the drink, suddenly guilty about his inability to do anything to help on an emotional level. The best form of support he can come up with is this, warm beverages and a provision of any physically comforting thing, but maybe there’s something else needed. Maybe he’s not fulfilling whatever mysterious responsibility he has as Canopus — though he’s not sure what that role even means — and the pressure of not guiding Koku enough, or guiding him  _ the wrong way _ by being a fallible human being, weighs on him like bricks. 

 

They throw functionality out the window for that day and don’t move on from the place they stopped at. The incessant rustling of pines outside is pleasant in a way someone living in a big city would usually daydream about experiencing, Koku has gone on his third, brief walk in the span of those few hours in hazy contemplation. He can be seen kicking a pinecone in the distance with every step and really does look deceptively childlike, preoccupied with irrelevant distractions. (Much less so when the sinews of his arm jut out as he murders someone.) He looks calmer when he’s back though, face a bit puffy from crying but peaceful, and for a moment Keith considers packing up but lets go of the idea out of his personal laziness. A campfire is thrown together instead, pot miraculously engineered above it with ease that would make him pass for a scout. It’s sunset again, and it lengthens the shadows of both them and the flipped barrel they usually put their plates on outside, creating a composition of silhouettes on the ground next to them.

 

Keith places a pot of gumbo on the table. The light is fading gradually from sight, making the dying fire its only source as it reflects from the shabby objects they brought from the trailer. The container’s handle has melted off halfway in the process of cooking, not because he didn’t pay attention, but because the equipment in this thing is such garbage that everything gets broken easily. The barrel resonates as the weight is posited on it. Koku jolts up just a little when a large dose of steaming food is poured onto his plate, Keith catches a glimpse of something in his features he can’t quite place.

 

“Thank you” Koku says, and it’s hard to tell how much truth there is to his gratitude.

 

Keith nods as he distributes the rest to himself. They spend most of the time like this, not talking at all — which is good, because that’s usually a waste of energy, something he’s pretty certain they have a mutual agreement on. It’s not awkward— No, they  _ try _ not to be awkward but they’re both just godawful at communication. 

 

“This is very good.”

 

“Stop acting weird” comes the immediate reaction from Keith — he can’t even tell where from, but it’s the first thing he can think of saying.

 

“What?” The other seems bewildered.

 

“I said: stop acting weird. You don’t have to give out these compliments like an obligation.”

 

“I’m sorry if my behaviour bothers you.” For once, Koku’s downcast expression looks honestly sad and it’s tricking Keith into feeling bad for him again. 

 

A few seconds pass without either of them speaking, and then Koku looks into his eyes with that unsettling difference in hue between his irises, opening his mouth to say something much softer and more quiet. There’s a bit of a tremble in his left hand as it holds the bowl of stew.

 

“Why are you helping me?”

 

Keith’s reaction ruptures the stillness between them, almost cutting him off before he can finish the phrase.

 

“For fuck’s sake!”

 

“Did I say something wrong?” The most loathsome thing about all of this is that Koku looks like he means every single thing he says, every single surprised response, like he’s not aware of their situation at all. 

 

Keith places a pot of gumbo on the table. He becomes aware that he picked up that half-ruined thing for no reason; surely, there must have been one a few seconds ago, but he can’t tell what it was. It’s almost empty, too. What the fuck.

 

“You did something, didn’t you?” He looks at Koku accusingly.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

He’s leaping forth without even reflecting, grabbing the other by the collar of his t-shirt — his own, really — as they both fall on the grass-covered ground. The crickets don’t care about the dramacity of the situation and continue their unfitting background noises as two men pant in each other’s faces in a state of astronomical confusion. A genius detective and a living god.

 

“I don’t like bragging about this,” Keith snarls uncharacteristically, “but I know for sure I’m not entirely stupid. You’ve been messing with my head, haven’t you?”

 

“Why do you think that?” Koku’s forehead pulls up in aloofness; it’s impossible, really, utterly impossible to decide whether he knows something or he wants to act like he does out of pride. 

 

“You repeat the same questions every day. It’s not that difficult to tell when you don’t even bother enough to brainwash me thoroughly.”

 

He looks remorseful and surrendered as Keith — half-awarely — holds both his wrists in place. The grass is soft and slightly wet. He wishes they were different people and Koku didn’t look so good there, among the droplets of dew, with his silky hair and anemic skin and dark lashes. The attraction towards him is compulsive and Keith wants nothing but to eradicate it from his mind as fast as it came because… It makes no sense. It’s terrible. God dammit. 

 

Koku appears sick now, like a realization has suddenly hit him. Keith is sure he’d be running off to the toilet to vomit if he wasn’t held down like this. Somehow, his tears from a mere moment later aren’t even surprising, as if they’ve both been waiting for this moment the whole evening. 

 

“I’m so sorry,” he blurts out, no sane reasoning left in him by then, “did I anger you?”

 

“Anyone would get mad at someone screwing up their memories, don’t you think?” The detective can feel a great deal of his anger dissipating with the sigh that tags along.

 

“Right.” Koku then looks up at him, expectantly, “And would you kiss me if I could do it again afterwards?”

 

Keith climbs off of him in disbelief, exhaling before himself as though he’s dealing with a petulant child.

 

“You’re out of your mind. Ask me after you’ve gotten enough sleep.”

 

“I have” Koku yells, making him freeze. He means it. Keith is in deep shit if he gives in to this.

 

One doesn’t care about getting into deep shit once the entire elite investigation branch of the Royal Police is chasing after them. After the person who mattered the most to them has been demonstrably, irrevocably dead for at least seven years — so, for a second, Keith can impolitely ignore whatever is happening in the grand scheme of Koku’s life to attack his lips a bit frantically in the almost abstract circumstances offered by the crickets and the campfire. If there was a choice to be made, he picked the worst option; but he isn’t sure there was one. Koku’s skin is soft and cold like an angel barely thriving, not entirely dead but held together by mystical forces so he doesn’t fall apart. Maybe he  _ is _ falling apart. Maybe Keith is the one wrapping the string around the pieces, just careful enough not to suffocate him. 

 

“Are you happy now?” He whispers to Koku with outright anger. “You played around with the variables until you got me to do this.”

 

“You’re still acting on your own accord,” the other replies with one arm circling Keith’s shoulders, clumsily because he can’t reach all the way around, “this is an existing outcome of those variables.”

 

“Yes, an extraneous solution.” It’s a bad idea to try and beat him at mathematical analogies.

 

“A solution nonetheless” Koku tries to cling to him with enough weight to pull him down further, unsatisfied with only getting this much.

 

“One that doesn’t solve the equation.”

 

But Keith is a hypocrite to argue then and there, because they do end up inside the trailer in the course of three minutes, which is exactly what Koku wanted. He starts to think considering the man some kind of divine authority isn’t that absurd in the end, that he gets his will across even if intricately. Keith lays him on the couch, the tense agitation is evident in both of them from how hard their hearts are beating. He hasn’t done anything like this in such a long time he can’t count — and it also dawns on him that maybe, probably, Koku never has at all. They’re kissing again, with a lot of tongue and teeth clashing against each other, Koku is first forceful but a second later too desperate to be. Keith sits up disillusioned when it hits him. What the fuck are they doing?

 

“This is such a bad idea,” he mutters before himself, looking away, like he’s giving an explanation, “do you even think before you act?”

 

“Maybe you’re the one who thinks  _ too much _ ” Koku snaps. He doesn’t move though, he stays where he is with that large t-shirt riding up on his stomach, bandages peeking out.

 

A pillow falls on the floor anticlimactically. Keith takes it into consideration that he might be right. The doubts only last for a second more, then he’s already nipping at the tendons of Koku’s neck and listening to his hyperventilating breaths, feeling him become warmer under his hands. One is cupping his cheek, the other roams his chest and the rough texture of bandages around it; what results are full moans of frustration. He thought of himself more highly than this, more highly than making out with a confused twenty-year-old who rides the flow and has no idea what he’s doing most of the time. The Black-winged King who’s going to rule the world along with a girl he’s been chasing after for a decade. There’s an immoral part of Keith’s mind that may actually want to dissect and destroy all of that for being so suspiciously ideal, but it  _ is _ a part of him that has to be forced out with a vise and it’s beyond him why Koku had to. Maybe he was curious. Or maybe Keith needs to stop seeing his own motivations in everyone.

 

He takes Koku after a brief intermission of something that could be charitably interpreted as foreplay — mostly cursing and looking for some age-old lotion that should be lying around somewhere there — but they’re so far gone it starts to feel worth it. The descriptors that come to mind when Keith tightens the hold on his hips are  _ skinny _ ,  _ pale _ and  _ harmoniously shaped _ . He feels sloppy and cumbersome in comparison. It’s a bit weird how he’d rather just admire him in this moment than fuck him, but Koku would object, that much is evident from the cries he lets out at every thrust forward. One of his legs is hooked around Keith’s waist with a frightening force, muscles distinct and contracted as they press against him. A joint cracks somewhere.

 

“Jesus, could you—” The detective stops for a moment. “Be a bit careful? Your bones are made of literal steel.”

 

“I’m sorry, I was overwhelmed.” 

 

The couch happens to be in an angle that lets the moonlight in; that faint blue suddenly looks gorgeous on Koku’s naked body, all tense and heaving under Keith, and he has to forgive him. Especially when he’s staring up with his eyes so glossy. He pushes his cock inside again and it’s good, it’s so good along with the whines and writhing he gets as a reaction that it almost exorcises the stifling shame lurking in the background. Koku is delirious, it’s so strange and incomprehensible that he’ll get rid of this memory too. Keith doesn’t want to start hoping he won’t.

 

“Keith…” His name falls from the other’s lips in a grunt. He wants to find some parallel there but no, it absolutely doesn’t sound the same as Erika, Lily, Gilbert, anyone would say it. 

 

“You’re so ridiculous.” It’s patronizing, maybe, but not derogatory. 

 

Wrapping a hand around Koku to make him come with a cry is easy, easier than one would expect with such an unmanageable creature. Having him exactly where Keith wants him. He can’t deny it turns him on even more and brings him to the edge while those angular limbs wrap around every part of his body they can reach, pressing Koku close to him. He’s so feverish and hot it could melt them both. At least that one curiosity about temperature has been answered. 

 

He sits on the edge of the couch after cleaning the other up thoroughly. It fits in comically well with the ordinary routine — everyday things, changing the soaked gauze with new ones, wiping the sweat off his body, making the traces of cum disappear from everywhere they got. It’s important, or one of them might get a suspicion after they forget. Right, Keith has to repeat to himself, they’ve got that left to do. It would be selfish— irrational to not want to. The most difficult thing to comprehend is what you  _ don’t know _ , the possibility that there’s something beyond what you perceive of the world. When his brain adds the next piece to the puzzle and the picture becomes more complete, he feels the urge to shout.

 

“Hold on—” He turns to Koku, idly sprawled across the covers and staring at the ceiling with residues of bliss and sleepiness, unsure how to continue.

 

“Is this the first time…?”

 

“Of course” He looks perplexed and Keith wants to call him the moron that he is.

 

“But you wouldn’t know that for sure, right?” There’s guilt washing across that innocent, moon-lit expression suddenly. It’s one of those moments when the genius detective is aggravated by his own brilliance. “Christ!”

 

He gets up as the anger takes over, feeling Koku stare at his back with deep regret he can sense even from where he is. If it wasn’t the middle of the night, he’d make coffee to calm himself. Keith waits for his own breathing to even out before turning back and being bathed in the glow himself, though it must be less pleasant of a sight on his run-down appearance, shirtless with crumpled pants and half a sock. 

 

“You won’t like hearing this,” he sighs, “but what about Yuna?”

 

Koku is visibly tensing up even more from how he dropped his pretense of not knowing her name.

 

“I love her” he responds without even reflecting, as if it’s mechanical.

 

“Yeah, whenever I’m not around.”

 

“Whenever you’re not around.” It doesn’t even register as a conflict.

 

He stays silent, fuck it, maybe to make the other uncomfortable on purpose. This is absurd. Keith is starting to feel cold due to the lack of clothing.

 

“It’s fated.” Koku, with a faint voice, gives out the reply he finds more reasonable. “Both  _ this _ and  _ that _ . They happened how they should have.”

 

Keith sits down next to him in resignation, running his fingers through his own hair to process it and even begin to put together a response. A scolding, if only he had the energy. Instead, with the short distance between the two having turned awkward again and a hand dangerously close to Koku’s calf, his words are controlled.

 

“Interesting how you people who harp on about fate always turn out to be the ones actively controlling the events.” 

 

The Black-winged King looks away with those eyes, those magical brainwashing devices.

 

“The idea of responsibility,” Keith continues, “is too much for you to bear. To know you could have crafted your own misery.”

 

He can see Koku’s mouth open with an audible inhale, but whatever he’s going to say is unnecessary and will only make things worse; so he places a hand on his shoulder, brotherly, unlike someone who just— No, it doesn’t matter. That memory will be short-lived anyway.

 

“Do your thing. First me, then yourself.” 

 

The last thing Keith thinks before passing out is that a power this fascinating should have a few notes taken about it. He should make a sketch of the intricate motifs of the pupil, the different phases as it swirls, all that bluish-green glow; is there a process releasing energy in the form of light behind the iris? What’s the technical function of the lashes extending so much? It should be experimented on, how long back in time the memories can be erased, the equation to describe how much time it takes in relation to the amount of information. He wants to reach out for his notebook but Koku doesn’t let up, at least now he’s determined enough to keep the other’s jaw in place with one hand. He places a brief and apologetic kiss on his lips, but Keith doesn’t have the time to be surprised by it before everything goes blank. He trusts Koku to do a thorough job this time.

 

Keith places a pot of gumbo on the table. It’s around twelve, just the right time for lunch, the sun is filtering into the trailer through the shutter’s cracks like a morse code. The container’s handle has melted off halfway in the process of cooking, not because he didn’t pay attention, but because the equipment in this thing is such garbage that everything gets broken easily. There’s a creak coming from the table as well as the weight is posited on it. Koku jolts up just a little when a large dose of steaming food is poured onto his plate, Keith could swear he saw one of his eyes moving independently from the other as though it has a life of its own. It luckily reminds him of a question he was going to ask on the subject, but he keeps it for a bit later.

 

“Thank you” Koku says like there’s any point in pretending to be polite when he’s a  _ serial killer _ .

 

Keith nods as he distributes the rest to himself. They spend most of the time like this, not talking at all — which is good, because that’s usually a waste of energy, something he’s pretty certain they have a mutual agreement on. It’s not awkward. It would be more awkward to force out small talk when there’s so much to handle for both of them. 

 

“This is very good.”

 

“I hope you feel compensated, not sure what hit me yesterday to make you sleep on the floor.” He rubs his own nape with a humble remorse that’s utterly out of character for him.

 

“It’s not a problem.”

 

“Stop just going along with it” Keith groans. “I shouldn’t have taken the couch while you needed to heal. Honestly, I’m pretty sure we both got a heat stroke. Would explain why I wasn’t wearing a shirt.”

 

Koku doesn’t say anything, but there’s a trace of amusement on his face as he finishes the gumbo, examining the food meticulously as he descends into deep thought. He’s interrupted by the clink of the detective’s spoon against the bowl, calling for his attention.

 

“You got your memories from Jaula Blanca back recently, right?”

 

“I have.”

 

“This is probably a stupider question than you should expect from me,” Keith closes his eyes and scratches the stubble on the side of his chin, “but how do you know they’re the real thing?”

 

Koku’s brows knit together; god, he’s awful at explaining things for an alleged genius.

 

“The memories. How do you know they’re not just more implanted ones or that you’re not going insane?”

 

“I don’t know,” the younger man shrugs, “they feel real. It’s like waking up from a dream.”

 

“I guess that makes sense” Keith mumbles.

 

He gets up from the table, leaving the other on his own by it; coffee seems adequate, coffee is always adequate. It’s getting hot outside and suddenly the heat stroke hypothesis sounds even more plausible, these are some unusually warm days for Autumn. He should really get a shirt already, he can’t tell for the life of him where he discarded the one from yesterday. The voice behind him is unexpected and startles him a bit.

 

“It’s very unstable.” He turns around to look at Koku, puzzled, before the other continues. “If someone says the right thing or you get too agitated, the brainwashing wears off. It all resurfaces at once. It’s painful.”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind. This might help with whoever we’re up against” Keith nods.

 

He’s about to turn around again to keep spooning coffee powder into the mocha, convinced that the dialogue is over, when Koku adds onto it and catches him off guard.

 

“Why are you helping me like this?”

 

What a tedious question. The sarcasm bubbles out of Keith beyond his control before he consciously decides to ignore a whole compartment of his own thoughts.

 

“Hell if I know, Koku. It’s probably fate.”

  
  



End file.
